Awaiting the arrival of her sibling, a young toddler is regaled with tales of the story regarding her own birth. Lund’s prose neatly captures the natural conversational rhythm between tot and parent. As the mother reminisces, the child eagerly interjects with comments and questions, reveling in the notion that she too made her mommy’s belly so big that her mom had to be pushed up hills and so forth. Liberally laced with humorous anecdotes, Lund offers a toddler-friendly, generalized version of pregnancy and birth and the surrounding emotions. Readers searching for technical description of gestation and birth will need to look elsewhere. Nakata’s watercolor illustrations are colorful and comic. Soft tones dominate the paintings, which portray both the current and historical events. The mother’s reminiscences are delineated by amoeba-like borders with a small vignette of the toddler’s gleeful reactions included in the corner of each spread. Warm-hearted and compassionate, this tale is ideal for sharing with expectant siblings, who will appreciate this subtle reminder of their own individuality. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-028876-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2004
Lola’s daddy takes her to the library every Saturday, where she finds “excellent books,” and every night her mommy or daddy reads them to her. The next day Lola acts out the story. On Sunday she’s a fairy princess; on Monday she takes her toy animals “on fantastic trips to places like Paris”; on Wednesday she’s a tiger, etc. Each new book and day provides Lola with a variety of tales to play out, with the last one—which is about a wild monster—posing the question, “What will Lola be tomorrow?” The final page shows her in a wolf suit just like Max’s. The library books, the pretending and the incorporation of the days of the week work together as a simple and pleasing premise. Beardshaw’s acrylic illustrations depict the multicultural kids and Lola’s black family with childlike charm, while the title will have librarians, parents and booksellers smiling. Alert: The book will be an invitation for lap kids to follow Lola’s lead—not such a bad thing. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-258-2
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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